When I was young, my grandfather had a German Shepherd named Fritz.
Enormous dog, especially compared to how big I was at the time. But gentle as a lamb around us kids.

One time (or so I'm told - I was too young to remember), I was pulling toys out of the old wooden toybox which was out on the patio, and
a brown snake was hiding in there. Fritz detected the danger and intervened, taking a
snakebite in my stead. It's highly possible I would have died if I'd been bitten, given how young I was.

Fritz became sick, but was strong enough to recover, and lived several more years.

2018-11-23 Rerun commentary: Although in-story they are still in Paris, it looks to me like the background here is another one of my own photos from Rome, or possibly elsewhere in Italy. Specifically, it looks a bit like the Colosseum, although I'm not 100% sure. Or maybe it's from Germany.